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Service Learning Resource Center (SLRC)

Participants from the Health Equity Circle Best Starts for Kids Action Assembly

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What Community Engagement Opportunities can I get involved with at UWSOM?

There are three main pillars of community engagem​ent at the School of Medicine: Service-learning, advocacy, and community organizing.

Service-learning: Service-learning is a structured learning experience that combines community-based service or research with preparation and reflection. Students engaged in service-learning provide community-based service or research in response to community-identified concerns and learn about the context in which service is provided, the connection between their service and academic coursework, and their roles as citizens and professionals.​

Advocacy and Community Organizing: Health disparities are historically and systemically rooted and therefore require interventions beyond direct service. Advocacy involves the act or process of arguing in favor of something or on behalf of an individual or community. Community organizing more specifically involves the building and exercising of power in order to improve health equity and influence decision making, policies, and practices. ​

Please visit the links on the right-hand side bar to learn more about how you can get involved with Service Learning and Advocacy at UWSOM.​​

Newsworthy

August 2015

​​Coming Full Circle:​ a UW Daily feature story on Krystal Koop, 2nd year Master of Social Work student, and the U-District Street Medicine project she leads.​

February 2015

“To Montana legislators: We would like to make a statement as members of the first expanded (30-member) Montana WWAMI medical school class, writing from rainy Seattle where we are now in our second year of training. We have been watching the Medicaid expansion news with hope…” ​

"SEATTLE - Single mom Capricha Alfred washes her clothes at a homeless shelter. She walks uphill a half mile in bad shoes to take her 13-year-old son to school. She's been homeless a year and a half. When Alfred isn't in school studying to become a baker or interning in the shelter kitchen, she carries the weight of her wardrobe and child's well being on her back and calloused feet..."